Doors and similarly sized and shaped objects such as those identified above are difficult to handle because their size and shape and perhaps considerable weight and because they must often be manipulated through doorways and other openings which require that the object being turned sideways, making it even more difficult to handle.
Cannon and Norfield have accordingly marketed carts which are ostensibly designed to make objects of the character just described easier to handle; i.e., to move from one location to another. The caster-supported Cannon cart is large, bulky, and cumbersome and is intended only for applications in which plywood or lumber is being moved in quantity from one location to another along a smooth, wide, obstruction-free path. Norfield's cart is designed for moving doors in a generally upright position. This has the disadvantage that the user's view of where he is going is obstructed by the door. Furthermore, the bottom of the door is supported from the chassis of the cart, and a bracket at the upper end of the cart handle provides a second locus of support. This arrangement makes it very difficult to tilt the cart and thereby lower the upper end of the door to the extent necessary to manipulate the cart and door through a doorway or other opening, especially a low one.
Other carts designed for handling objects of the character described above are disclosed in the following patent publications:
______________________________________ Publication Effective Number Country Title Date ______________________________________ 2585655 France Trolley for Securely 6 Feb 1987 Handling Panels 19867 Great 5 Dec 1890 Britain 134082 Sweden For Transport of av 27 Dec 1951 pl.ang.tar och andra skivformiga forem.ang.l avsedd karra forem81 avesedd karra 2816771 United Moving Dolly for Tables 17 Dec 1937 States and the Like 3306624 United Dolly for Moving Boxes 28 Feb 1967 States of Glass 3717357 United Adjustable Dolly 20 Feb 1973 States Construction ______________________________________
The carts disclosed in the foregoing patent publications do not appear to have ever made it to the marketplace. This is understandable as different ones of these carts have one or more of a variety of drawbacks. These include: complexity; lack of stability; an undesirable degree of difficulty in loading the object into the cart and/or in securing the object in place; a lack of ease in manipulating the cart and its load from one location to another; an unstable relationship between the load and the cart and an inability to be adapted to different types of loads; and inadequate protection of the load from damage.
From the foregoing and the cited documentation, it will be apparent to the reader that there exists a long-standing need for a cart which can be used to transport objects of the character described above from one location to another but does not have drawbacks of the character appurtenant to carts heretofore proposed for the same purpose.